Yakiv Feofanovich Chepiga (Zelenkevich) – famous Ukrainian teacher, psychologist and public figure, born 12 May 1875. He was born on May 7, 1955 in the village of Maryantsi, Kherson Oblast (now Mykolaiv Oblast). The surname Zelenkevych is his patronymic and Chepiga is his mother’s surname.
After graduating from the two-class state school in Hrusivka, Yakov Feofanovich Chepiga entered the Novobuzka Teachers’ Seminary in September 1892, where he received his pedagogical education. In 1895, the young man began his teaching career. He first taught at the Zeletsky School (Kherson Oblast), then worked as a teacher in schools in the Donbas, then in 1900-1901 he was the head of the evening adult courses in Luhansk, and in 1908-1911 he was the head of the Voznesensk Mining People’s University in Donetsk Oblast.
Yakov Feofanovich Chepiga not only taught, but also carefully studied foreign pedagogical experience. He expressed his thoughts on this issue in the pages of the Ukrainian pedagogical magazine “Shviesa”. At that time (1909-1914), under the brutal Ukrainian oppression, the magazine was the centre of pedagogical thought.
Based on an analysis of the works of the famous American psychologist Stanley Hall and the German educator Wilhelm Lais, Yakov Feofanovich Chepiga argued for the need to create a new system of education and upbringing, based on a thorough study of the nature of the child. The teacher devoted the following works to these ideas: “Attention and the Mental Development of the Child”, “Fear and Punishment”, “Lying in the Matter of Education” and others.
In 1917-1920, together with other members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, Yakiv Feofanovich Chepiga took an active part in the development of textbooks for Ukrainian schools. These textbooks differed from the old ones by the new content of the exercises, based on local material and using Ukrainian terminology.
Yakiv Feofanovich Chepiga was the author of textbooks on Ukrainian language and mathematics for primary schools and methodological publications. He believed that school should be a continuation of the family for the child, and that the teacher’s influence should be felt beyond the school.
Yakov Feofanovich Chepiga (Zelenkevich) died on 22 August 1938.
Information prepared by Vitalina Kuznietsova, Curator of the Collection of the Lithuanian Museum of Education
